What is the Persian Cultural Renaissance?
The flowering of Persian literature, science, philosophy, art, and political thought that took place in the ninth to twelfth centuries CE, primarily in the eastern Islamic world, under the Samanid, Buyid, and Ghaznavid dynasties. Also called the Persian Renaissance, the Samanid Renaissance, or the revival of Persian culture. The Renaissance was a major turning point in the history of Persian civilisation, in which the Persian language, the Persian literary tradition, and the Persian political and religious identity were revived, reformulated, and projected across the eastern Islamic world. The subject is part of the broader treatment in the Persian Influence on Islam cluster, the Persian Legacy in Modern Iran cluster, and the Persian Legacy and Influence pillar. The reference work is Ehsan Yarshater’s The Cambridge History of Iran vol. IV (1975); the recent contributions in Sunil Sharma’s Persian Poetry at the Indian Frontier (2000) and Maria Subtelny’s Timurids in Transition (2007) are the principal modern treatments.
The Samanid dynasty (819–999 CE)
The Samanid dynasty of Transoxiana and Khorasan (819–999 CE) was the principal patron of the Persian Cultural Renaissance. The Samanids, who claimed descent from the Saman Khuda, a local Iranian noble of the late Sasanian period, ruled a vast territory in eastern Iran and Central Asia, including the cities of Bukhara, Samarkand, Merv, Balkh, Herat, and Nishapur. The Samanid court at Bukhara, in particular, was a major centre of Persian literature, and the Samanid chancery, under officials such as Bal’ami, was the model for the new literary register of New Persian.
The Samanid rulers, including Nasr I (r. 819–864), Isma’il ibn Ahmad (r. 892–907), and Mansur I (r. 961–976), were great patrons of Persian poetry and learning. Isma’il ibn Ahmad, in particular, is remembered for his support of the poet Rudaki, the first great poet of New Persian. The Samanid chancery was a major centre of prose writing, and the chancery style, which was a synthesis of Arabic and Middle Persian elements, became the standard prose style of the New Persian literary tradition. The Samanid patronage was, importantly, of the poets and scholars, not of the Shahnameh — Ferdowsi’s great patron was the Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna, not the Samanids (the Samanids had fallen by Ferdowsi’s prime).
The Samanid period also saw the rise of the major Persian poets and scientists of the early Islamic period. The poet Rudaki (858–941 CE), the first great poet of New Persian, was a Samanid court poet whose surviving works include a large corpus of lyric and panegyric poetry. The scientist Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 980–1037 CE), the author of the Canon of Medicine and the Book of Healing, was a Samanid-era scholar who worked in Bukhara, the Samanid capital, before moving westward.
The Buyid dynasty (934–1062 CE)
The Buyid dynasty, also called the Buwayhid dynasty, was an Iranian Shia dynasty that ruled western Iran, Iraq, and parts of central and eastern Iran from 934 to 1062 CE. The Buyid rulers, including Mu’izz al-Dawla (r. 945–967), Adud al-Dawla (r. 949–983), and Baha al-Dawla (r. 989–1012), were great patrons of Persian literature, art, and science. The Buyid court at Baghdad, in particular, was a major centre of Persian learning, and the Buyid viziers, including the famous Ibn ‘Abbad, known as al-Sahib, were great patrons of scholars and poets.
The Buyid period saw the compilation of the major Persian prose works of the tenth and eleventh centuries, including the Kamil fī al-tārīkh of Ibn al-Athir (sometimes spelled “Ibn Asir” in older sources), the Tarikh-i Sistan, and the Lughat-i Furs of Asadi Tusi. The Buyid period also saw the rise of the major Persian poets of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, including the panegyric poet Unsuri, the lyric poet Farrokhi, and the great mystic and poet Sanai of Ghazna.
The Buyid period also saw the rise of the major Persian scientists of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, including Biruni (973–1048 CE), the great polymath of Khwarezm, Avicenna (980–1037 CE), the great physician and philosopher, and Omar Khayyam (1048–1131 CE), the great poet and mathematician. Biruni, in particular, was a major figure of the Persian Cultural Renaissance, and his works on astronomy, mathematics, mineralogy, pharmacology, history, and comparative religion set the methodological bar for empirical research in the Islamic world.
The Ghaznavid dynasty (977–1186 CE)
The Ghaznavid dynasty, founded by Sabuktigin (r. 977–997) and consolidated by Mahmud of Ghazni (r. 998–1030), was a Turkic dynasty that ruled a vast territory in eastern Iran, Central Asia, and parts of the Indian subcontinent. The Ghaznavid court at Ghazni, in particular, was a major centre of Persian literature, and Mahmud of Ghazni, who was one of the great patrons of Persian letters, supported a large court of poets, scholars, and artists. The relationship between Mahmud and Ferdowsi is the famous one: Ferdowsi devoted decades to the Shahnameh and expected a substantial reward from Mahmud, who eventually sent a payment that Ferdowsi regarded as inadequate — the famous story of Ferdowsi’s bitter satire of the Sultan in retaliation.
The Ghaznavid period saw the rise of the major Persian poets of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, including the panegyric poets Farrokhi Sistani, Unsuri, Manuchehri, and Mu’izzi, the great mystic Sanai of Ghazna (d. 1131 CE), and the panegyric and epic poet Mas’ud Sa’d Salman. The Ghaznavid period also saw the compilation of the major Persian prose works of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, including the Siyasatnameh of Nizam al-Mulk (1018–1092), the great Seljuk vizier, and the Asrar al-Tawhid of Muhammad ibn Munawwar. The period also saw the rise of Persian mystics and Sufis such as Ahmad Ghazali (d. 1126) and ‘Ayn al-Qudat al-Hamadani (1098–1131).
The birth of New Persian
The Persian Cultural Renaissance was, in part, a linguistic event. The Arabic language had been the dominant language of administration, scholarship, and high culture in the Islamic world since the seventh century, and the major literary, scientific, and religious works of the eighth to tenth centuries were written in Arabic. The revival of Persian as a literary language, beginning in the ninth century and reaching a high point in the tenth to twelfth centuries, was a major cultural achievement. The birth of New Persian, written in a modified Arabic script but with a large Persian vocabulary and a distinctively Persian grammatical structure, was the foundation of the Persian literary tradition of the medieval and modern periods.
The Samanid chancery, in particular, was the cradle of New Persian prose. The Samanid officials, including Bal’ami, the vizier, developed a chancery style that was a synthesis of Arabic and Middle Persian elements, and this chancery style was the model for the New Persian prose tradition. The Samanid chancery style was used in the great Persian prose works of the tenth to twelfth centuries, including the Tarikhnama of Bal’ami, the Qabusnameh of Kai Kaus, and the Siyasatnameh of Nizam al-Mulk.
The Samanid chancery style was also used in the great Persian poetic works of the tenth to twelfth centuries, including the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, the Divan of Rudaki, and the Divan of Unsuri. The Samanid poets and prose writers, working in the chancery style, created a literary tradition that was distinctively Persian and that was to become one of the great literary traditions of the medieval and modern world.